Pinnacle 9.3SE

I am completely new to editing software. I have acquired Pinnacle9.3 which I felt I was mastering quite well, however adding music is proving difficult to grasp. I can add a CD track to the start of a clip and know how to time it to end, although not to fade which is preferred. Moreso I find it difficult to comprehend adding a CD track to another part of the clip other than the start. Could anyone guide me in layman's terms how to achieve this.

I have studio 9 plus so assume it will be same on your version. You should be able to drop a music clip anywhere along the timeline or if you have it on the timeline you can drag it along to where you want it.
As for fading if you go to the toolbox and go to the audio side of it, then select the levels icon, can;t remeber what the icon is as i'm at work right now. Might be a microphone, anyone when you select it you get what looks like a mixing desk with sliders for the different tracks. underneath each slider is a fade in and fade out icon. so on the time line place the cursor wher you want the fade out to end and then press the fade icon and it will put one in for you.

If yoy want to extend or shorten the fade you'll notice on the timeline there will be a blue dot where the fade starts. if you hover the mouse over that point it should change to a hand icon and then you can drag that point to wherever you want it.

Hope you can understand most of that and that you can work your way through it. if you have the manual its covered in there as well certainly better than I can explain anyway.

Unfortunately I still have not overcome my problem. I can drag the sample music in Pinnacle to the time line okay. My problem appears to be capturing the cd tracks. I can capture a track, play it on an audio line but this is not dragging it to a particular point. My understanding is that I should have the list of tracks from the CD in a window from where I drag and drop to the appropriate place on the timeline (as you advised). This is what I have not been able to do , hence my problem may lie with how to capture the CD properly and bringing up the the tracks - then dragging/dropping should be fine. Can you advise?

Ok, to capture directly from a cd do the following, I'll use the menus across the top but there are icons you can use as well.

Have the cd you want to capture from in youe drive ready.
Click the toolbox menu across the top of the screen and you should have an item on there called Add CD music. Select this and a screen comes up with a couple of drop downs, 1 has the name of the cd and the one below it has the tracks. In the event that studio doesn't recognise the disc it will ask for a title, just enter one and ok it. Most discs it takes the title and track data from, but some older discs it can't read.
Then just selct the track you want from the track drop down list and then press the add to movie button next to the drop downs.
One gotcha though. If you do not have any video on the timeline when you add the music track, studio will place it at the start of the timeline 0.00 seconds and won't allow you to more any further along. Once you add some video though it will allow you to move it.
If you already have video on the timeline then wherever the timeline marker is at the time when you press add to movie is where the track will be dropped and you can move it as you wish along the timelime.

Another way of adding music is if you have ripped the music from a cd with Windows media player or other app and placed the music in a folder then you can select from the folder by using the ALBUM menu and select the sound effects option and then navigate to the folder where your music is and select the track you want from there and drag and drop to the timeline in the same manner as if it were a pice of video.

Hope that this helps solve the problem. As I said before this is how its done on my Studio plus version but it should be the same or very similiar on yours, it should at least get you pointed in the right direction.

I feel I am almost back to square one, although perhaps I was initially too hooked up on the timing of the audio clip. I have followed your guidance and have the track of the CD showing on the audio line (blue), including at the correct start point on the video line. However I cannot get both audio and movie clip to play at the same time - only one or the other. I am now beginning to wonder if there is something wrong with the software (or is it still me!)

That sounds very strange. If you have both items on the timeline then when you press play its hould play whatever is there.
Just to be clear is this what happens. If only the audio clip plays you do not get any video showing in the preview window, and vice versa that if the video is playing you can see the video and only get the audio from the video and not the cd track you added.
If you are always seeing the video but are getting different audio make sure you haven't muted the timelines by using the small icons at the end of the timelines.

Is it pot luck which one plays are can you get each to play on their own by something you are doing?.
If its pot luck/ random then maybe the project has become corrupted possibly. Try starting a new project and bring in all your footage and cd tracks again and see if that works. If it doesn't then maybe studio itself has become corrupted and will need to be reinstalled.
The only other place I can think of to check with for more advice about that specific version of studio is the pinnacle user forums.

I decided to go to another project and now adding CD seems ok - (touch wood!)
thank you. This new project was already captured and therefore is displayed ok on storyboard or timeline and previews ok. It does not however appear on the album screen - surely it should??